Yahya Jammeh

22 results arranged by date

Last week, the proposed Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act emerged from the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee with approval. The bill was passed by the Senate last year. If passed by the full House of Representatives and signed into law by the president, it has the potential to offer partial redress to one of the most chilling truths facing journalists today: in 90 percent of cases, the murders of journalists go unpunished.

Dear President Jammeh: The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent international press freedom organization, is writing to express its concern about a Gambian journalist who has been held by the National Intelligence Agency since July 17.

Abuja, Nigeria, July 9, 2015--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Gambian authorities to disclose the whereabouts, health, and legal status of Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay, a radio journalist who was last seen on July 2 with individuals reported to be Gambian state security agents.

"Gambian security agents have long stoked a climate of fear for journalists working in the country," said Peter Nkanga, CPJ West Africa representative. "We call on Gambian authorities to immediately release Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay and to stop trying to silence the media through intimidation."

3. Where Impunity Thrives

A climate of impunity reached a tragic culmination on November 23, 2009, when gunmen ambushed a caravan escorting political candidate Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu as he prepared to file papers to become a candidate for provincial governor in the Philippines. The attackers slaughtered 58 people, among them 30 journalists and two media workers, the largest toll of journalists murdered in a single act since CPJ began keeping track in 1992.

Top African and U.S. leaders are meeting next week in Washington in a first-of-its-kind summit focused on African development. But critics argue the summit is flawed in design, overlooking human rights such as freedom of expression and barring civil society actors from bilateral discussions.

Tags:

Lagos, Nigeria, January 14, 2014--Gambian authorities
should drop the charges against two journalists who have been held since Monday
on accusations of giving false information, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said today.

Tags:

Abuja,
Nigeria, October 3, 2013--Gambian authorities should immediately release Fatou
Camara, a journalist who has been held incommunicado since September 17, the
Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The government has not disclosed
Camara's whereabouts or any charges against her, according to news reports.

Tags:

Abuja, Nigeria, January 9, 2013--Gambian authorities
should immediately release Abdoulie John, a journalist who has been detained without
charge in Banjul since Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
John has been harassed by the Gambian National Intelligence Agency since early
December, news reports said.

John, editor of the online news website Jollof
Newsand a contributor to The Associated Press, was summoned for
questioning at the headquarters of the NIA at around 2 p.m. on Monday, Lamin
Jahateh, a representative of the Gambia Press Union, who was with John at the
time, told CPJ. John was questioned for about three hours, he said. Emil Touray,
president of the union, told CPJ that the agents took John to his home where
they conducted a search, before returning him to custody.

In the eight years since unidentified assailants shot and
killed Deyda Hydara of
the Gambia, no one has been held to account. The late 2004 murder of Hydara, an
immensely respected editor, columnist, and press freedom advocate known for his
criticism of President Yahya Jammeh's repressive media policies, became a
rallying point for Gambian journalists and the human rights community--a symbol
of the violent means by which activists and journalists are silenced and of the
impunity that envelops acts of intimidation, ranging from arson to torture and
murder.

Tags:

Lagos, Nigeria, November 16, 2012--The
Committee to Protect Journalists today said it holds authorities in the Gambia
responsible for the safety of a journalist who has received death threats
following critical coverage of the government.

Abubacarr Saidykhan, a freelancer who contributes to several news websites, told CPJ that four unknown people on Tuesday threatened him at his Ebo Town residence in Kanifing Municipality, some seven miles (11 kilometers) from the capital Banjul. Saidykhan said he was near his compound gate with his brother when the men drove up in an unmarked vehicle with tinted windows and threatened to kill him next time they see him. One of the men called him "a very stubborn journalist" before they drove off.